Sony, Renesas Electronics and Texas Instruments (TI), among makers of components of optical disc drives (ODDs) in Japan, have suffered the most impact of the large earthquake hitting northeastern Japan on March 11.
Sony's factories of Blu-ray Disc (BD) pick-up heads were damaged and production has been stopped. Recess' seven semiconductor factories, four of which hit by the earthquake, have stopped production due to disrupted or insufficient power supply. Renesas accounts for 20% of global supply of controller ICs used in ODDs. TI's stopping production at its semiconductor factories has resulted in disrupted supply of its motor driver ICs used in ODDs.
TI, apart from restoring equipment at the factory located in Ibaraki Prefecture, has been shifting production of motor driver ICs to other factories but this will take at least two month to start production.